Fractured Expectations

"We're a family of worst case scenarios that turn out fine."

I don't know how many times I've said that, rattling off the list of cancer, high risk pregnancies, premature births, food allergies,  myasthenia gravis...

This was the insulated bubble in which I began January. Heidi would be fine. Of course she would be fine. We're always fine. Maybe not quite perfect, but nearly - like it always is. And then she wasn't, and every day less so, until we passed so many points of no return that the finality of it all crystallized: the miracles for which we were pleading were being answered differently than the healing I so naturally expected. 

It wasn't a matter of faith - or was it? I think I had internalized it as being part of my heritage that we are tried, tested, and healed. This was simply the way it always happened. It was a faith based on the expectation born of experience. 

With Heidi, the bubble burst. Disbelief. Not un-belief, but incredulity.

I'm still wrestling with this. I have been so sheltered by a life of miraculous protection that I don't quite know how to make sense of the raw, awful reality that crammed lifetimes of brutality into Heidi's last 12 days, and then left 5 beautiful children without a mother and the most selfless devoted spouse without a wife.  And yet, "To whom else shall we go?" but the one who in it all is Emmanuel, God with us. 

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This was my scenery Tuesday night when we realized that, "I hurt my back," from a crying Joey wasn't his usual drama-king routine. Nor could I positively say that his leg weakness was his usual "I can't walk" shtick that features in meltdowns more frequently than I have patience for it. What was unusual was him dragging himself along the floor behind his siblings who were racing to the kitchen to get popsicles. Mark promptly whisked him off to the ER while I went off to my Adoration hour. 

In that hour, I felt myself reliving my Adoration hour from the evening of January 3rd, when Heidi was in the ER with Kevin. That evening all signs pointed towards her improvement; surely she would be fine. And now, surely Joey would be fine. But she wasn't fine, and Joey...? I sat and prayed, texted, prayed more, pondered. I clutched my wallet that contains a few of Heidi's hairs that I rescued from her pillow, and recalled 2 Kings 13:21 and Acts 5:15.

I prayed for a miracle to occur before we even knew to call it miraculous. I didn't want to know how bad it was or could've been, I just wanted Joey healed - without us ever knowing how close we came. How often are we protected like this, close call after close call? No doubt very often, and I prayed that this would be one of those times.

2 MRIs and a CT scan revealed multiple fractured vertebrae and injured ligaments from C7-T4. But as the MRI results came in, so too did the news from Mark that Joey was now pain-free and walking normally (so much so that when the nurse came in with Tylenol - the first & only medication he was offered, it was completely unnecessary). His spinal cord was uninjured. It seems too simple to hear, "He needs to rest, don't let him do anything besides walking for 2-3 months. You're free to go." Miraculous? Only God can say.

2023 has felt like a decade: exhaustion, growth, awful, awe, seeing the reality and power of God glorified in Himself and not just His gifts... But my humanity, my mind and body, feel done. I think back to December when my idea of busy was tackling a few more DIY projects. Now, rest sounds like a week without someone needing medical care. But in it, Emmanuel, God with us. And in Him I can give thanks in all circumstances, because He is my home, my rest, my strength, my deliverer. Even when I'm sitting on my kitchen floor because my exhausted body is toast, he meets me in the delight of my baby who seizes the opportunity to cover me in kisses.  

Thank you Heidi for your prayers for Joey. Come Holy Spirit.

Joey receives his First Communion on Sunday. Please keep him (and us) in your prayers!